If you want to go into space first time on a new vehicle that's never been flown, you want to go with a pro.

If you want to go into space first time on a new vehicle that's never been flown, you want to go with a pro.

We were on the dark side of the Earth when we started to see outside the window this soft pink glow, which is a lot of little angry ions out there going very fast. We were hitting them very fast.

Having the opportunity to fly the first flight of something like a space shuttle was the ultimate test flight.

Living inside the shuttle was a little like camping out. We ended up sleeping in our seats. You had to pay attention to housekeeping, not get things too dirty.

I was selected to be an astronaut on a military program called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory back in '67 and that program got cancelled in '69 and NASA ended up taking half of us...

You're going very fast when you're on orbit, going around the world once every hour and a half.